What to expect when learning a new language to feel actual progress
Congratulations, you’ve decided to embark on one of the longest and most exciting trips that you’ll ever have. Learning a language is literally constructing a bridge to a new country, culture, food, traditions and so much more. You’re forming a new personality for yourself when you learn a new language.
Now to the main question. What should I do? to improve quickly and communicate faster?
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Discipline:
You can take all the courses in the world while being the smartest one ever and still achieve almost nothing if you don’t put in consistent effort.
The first thing is you need to set aside at least 20 minutes daily for the language you’re learning. What should you do in those 20 minutes? Well, that’s up to you, everyone studies differently but here are some suggestions:
– read out loud all the new words you added to your notes ( would be better if you could record yourself and compare it to a native speaker)
– Write sentences using the new words or grammar that you added to your notes. This reveals weaknesses you could work on.
– Challenge yourself to write random sentences for 20 minutes (set a timer)
2nd thing to do is to always assess yourself.
Go online and find a native speaker to chat with or talk to (if you don’t have someone already) and if that person understands what you’re saying then you’ve made progress. If not then go back to practicing again.
3rd thing to do is be consistent:
You have to challenge yourself to do these study sessions for 30 days in a row. And to compare, record yourself speaking on day 1 then record yourself on day 30. As you’re reading this I’m sure you thought “of course it’s going to be night and day” now imagine doing that for a whole year.
Did you notice how I wrote number 1 is Discipline and number 2 still hasn’t come yet? Well that’s because it’s all about Discipline.
Good luck
